TaskPaper in Mac App Store

TaskPaper is now available in the Mac App Store. In celebration (marketing!!!) it’ on-sale both in the App Store and on my own website store for $4.99. Price will return to $29.99 on Friday.

WriteRoom 2.5 is here

The new update to WriteRoom is out, and has also come to the Mac App Store!

For a very short time, WriteRoom will be on sale in the App Store for $4.99 (Mac App Store price only). If you are a current user and want to switch to the App Store for updates, now is the time! The price will be going back up to $24.99 on February 26th.

WriteRoom will still be available from the Hog Bay Software website and you can update the app directly: WriteRoom menu —> Check for Updates.

The only differences between the website and App Store versions are the update methods.

Temporary issue with QuickCursor and WriteRoom: We’re using a different Bundle ID for WriteRoom 2.5, which means that until the next QuickCursor update it won’t show up in the ‘Edit In…’ list unless you manually add the new Bundle ID. Instructions for how to do this are in the QuickCursor User’s Guide (QuickCursor menu bar icon —> Help, see page 5) or see this forum post for step-by-step instructions.

Preferences: If your WriteRoom preferences get reset during the update to version 2.5, see this post for how to restore them.

QuickCursor 2.2 now in Mac App Store

• Added Smultron’s App Store bundle ID.
• Added Aquamacs (compatible with version 2.2+).
• Changed status bar icon to 15px high.
• Fixed crash when app doesn’t have name set in bundle.
• Updated users guide listing special cases with some apps.

Please try it out.

QuickCursor 2.1 now in Mac App Store

• Polished app icon.
• Added file extensions preference.
• Fixed crash when “editing in” from TextMate.

Please try it out.

QuickCursor now available in Mac App Store

For a better text editing experience. QuickCursor brings your favorite text editor* to any app with a global keyboard shortcut. Unlike manually copying and pasting between apps, QuickCursor automates the entire process to save you time.

QuickCursor has been a hobby app for me. My goal was to write a generic “edit in” feature that worked with multiple apps and used all public APIs. QuickCursor was to replace WriteRoom’s “edit in” plugin which only worked with WriteRoom, used private API’s, and was broken by the OS X 10.5 update.

QuickCursor 1.x worked well, but only in some apps, so I just gave it away for free and didn’t think much about it. Then this summer I tried a new implementation approach, and I finally got it working later in the fall. QuickCursor 2.0 uses this new approach and seems to work in any Mac app that support basic copy and paste text operations (basically all apps that I’ve tried). Now that the darn thing works I’m selling it for $4.99 in the Mac App Store.

I hope you’ll give it a try and good review if it’s deserving of one.

TaskPaper 1.3 for iOS submitted to app store

The features and fixes include:

• Added retina display icons.
• Documents will remember searches.
• Documents will remember scroll positions.
• New task bullet, now more consistent with TaskPaper for Mac.
• Changed to use spaces instead of tabs when emailing a list, so indentation displays in iOS Mail app.
• Fixed a drag-drop bug where a task would get moved to the end of the list instead of where it was dropped.
• Fixed an undo bug that caused a crash when undoing the ‘Archive Done’ action.
• Fixed occasional crashing when app-switching on iPad.
• Fixed some bugs that occur with empty documents.

WriteRoom 2.5b public beta

I’m posting a new WriteRoom for Mac preview release as a public beta.

We’ve been working with Kim Young Hoo of Coding Robots and he’s done a great job of squashing bugs and getting this beta ready.

Here’s a highlight reel of the changes and fixes since the last 2.5 beta:

• Cursor position in Full Screen Mode is now remembered correctly whatever your Scale settings.
• If you have your background set to black in Window Mode, the cursor block shows up instead of disappearing. It’s still best to enable “Apply full screen colors to all windows.”
• “Reopen last open documents” is not enabled by default.
• A few more typos fixed.
• Plays well with QuickCursor 2.0 (pending the opening of the Mac App Store). Previously it could fail periodically when getting the text back out.

Download WriteRoom 2.5 beta (70)

Grey is also working on an all-new User’s Guide (and ghost writing this post for Jesse, “Thanks!” says Jesse). It’s not in this version, but it’s coming soon and will focus what makes WriteRoom distinct from other text editors such as TextEdit.

Please try it out and let us know about any bugs and quirky behaviors you encounter by posting in the comments below.

SimpleText.ws sync errors

For the last 2 weeks or so sync to SimpleText.ws has been throwing errors for some users. Unfortunately it coincided nicely with me being away from my computer, so I haven’t been able to look into the problem until recently.

Unfortunately the problem doesn’t look to be under my control. Google App Engine (where I host SimpleText.ws) recently changed some things, and in the process it appears like they introduced periodic errors for PUT and DELETE HTTP requests.

This issue and this thread in the Google App Engine forums describe the problem. The good news is that I’m not alone, other developers are also being effected by this issue. That leads me to believe that some fix or workaround should arrive soon.

Update

It appears that Google found the bug and will be pushing out the fix over the next day or two. In the meantime it appears that the bug only applied to custom domains on App Engine. So if you want to get things working immediately you can change your sync server (In your apps preferences) from “http://www.simpletext.ws” to “http://simpletextws.appspot.com” and that should allow you to avoid the problem.